Reasons to Research

If you’re a community-based hospitalist who hasn’t conducted research since your residency or medical school, you may want to consider undertaking a research project to broaden your career and your skill set.

Why Add Research to Your Workload?

If you’re a non-researcher, why would you want to add this new component to an already busy workload?

“I think there are a number of reasons why a hospitalist might want to get involved in doing research,” says Peter Lindenauer, MD, MSc, FACP, medical director, Clinical and Quality Informatics, Baystate Health in Springfield, Mass., and assistant professor of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston. You may decide to undertake research because you’re curious about a specific area and want to make some new discoveries—and expand the general body of knowledge in that area. Or you may undertake a research project, says Dr. Lindenauer, because of “a desire to help your patients more specifically—to provide better care based on your own research findings.”

But some non-academic hospitalists may decide to lead a research project for more personal reasons. “I’m someone whose career has benefited from doing research,” admits Dr. Lindenauer, pointing out that a published research study brings recognition to the study author. “It can help you establish a professional niche. By doing research, you can become a highly visible member of our professional society.”

And a more basic reason, says Dr. Lindenauer, is that “research is something that can provide diversification to your work life, and it can bring professional satisfaction. It spices up one’s career.”

Career Nuggets

The Value of Benefits

How much are your benefits worth? If you’re interviewing for a new position, don’t hesitate to ask as part of your salary negotiations. If you’re curious about your current package, ask your human resources professional. When factored in with your salary, your health insurance, retirement plan, life insurance, and other benefits will help you to decide if your compensation is competitive.

Moving Cross-Country?

Hospitalists can live and work practically anywhere they like within the United States. If you’re thinking of relocating, use the handy online Relocation Wizard at www.homefair.com/Moving_and_Planning/Tools/index.asp. You’ll find everything from information on schools, crime, and costs for a specific town to a move planner with weekly e-mail reminders.

When Doctors Marry Each Other

According to the American College of Physicians, nearly half of all physicians might soon marry other physicians. “When Doctors Marry Doctors: A Survey Exploring the Professional and Family Lives of Young Physicians,” (Sobecks NW, Justice AC, Hinze S, et al. Ann Intern Med. 1999;130 (4 Pt 1):312-319.), examined two-physician families and found these important differences: Compared with physicians married to non-physicians, those with doctor-spouses earned less, less often felt that their careers took precedence over the careers of their spouses, and more often played a major role in child rearing. (These findings were more prevalent for female physicians.) Physicians in two-physician marriages, on the other hand, showed more frequent enjoyment of shared work interests and had higher overall family incomes. They attained family and career goals as often as physicians married to non-physicians.

A Legal Guide for Working Physicians

The title says it all: The Biggest Legal Mistakes Physicians Make and How to Avoid Them, by Steven Babitsky. This desk reference contains more than 1,200 of the “costliest legal errors” that doctors can make.

QI: The Perfect Fit

A full-time hospitalist who is a novice or an inexperienced researcher obviously isn’t in a position to lead a multi-center, randomized trial or conduct extensive lab work. There is another type of research, however, that seems the perfect fit for a community-based hospitalist.

“Rather than setting the bar at an unattainable level, hospitalists should consider getting involved in quality improvement research, since hospitalists are often ideally suited to participate [in] and lead the interventions themselves,” says Dr. Lindenauer. “It’s not the only kind of research, but it’s a natural, given the roles that hospitalists play. However, hospitalists can be involved in clinical trials, in analyses of secondary data, and even in doing intervention studies at their own institutions.”

And a quality improvement project, if conducted correctly, is likely to be accepted for publication and/or presentation. “While QI research is somewhat different than traditional, clinical research, there’s an increasing interest in seeing [QI] research published in established medical journals,” explains Dr. Lindenauer. “Some hospitalists have been very successful at doing this and [in] publishing the results and … giving presentations.”

Steps to Get Started

So how should you go about setting up your first QI research project?

Your first step—and possibly the most important—is selecting a research topic. “It’s important to come up with good research questions,” says Dr. Lindenauer. “One framework for choosing a topic is the acronym FINER, which stands for: [is it] feasible, interesting, novel, ethical, and relevant?”

Once you have a likely focus for quality improvement, outline how you mean to go about the project. “You have to choose a study plan and make sure the plan matches the question,” says Dr. Lindenauer.

When you have a basic idea for your project, says Dr. Lindenauer, “You have to find time in an already busy life, and you have to find support.” For one thing, very few questions can be answered by a single physician. For another, you’ll need your hospital’s buy-in.

“For QI research, it’s natural to go to your hospital’s quality improvement department,” says Dr. Lindenauer. “Ask the director of the department to sit down, and then find out what’s on the hospital’s agenda. You’ll need to find some common ground, some overlap between your interests and the hospital’s. Support is so important, and given all the external pressures for improving quality, it’s unlikely that your quality improvement department will support a project that doesn’t align with their plans or focus. So align your interests with those of the hospital and go from there.”

Ideally, you’ll also find some mentorship before or during your first project. “At a community hospital, where no faculty is available, you must identify potential mentors from outside your hospital,” says Dr. Lindenauer. “Find faculty at a university that your hospital is affiliated with or someone who was a mentor to you during your residency or medical school. And sometimes a quality improvement department can supply a mentor.”

Lastly, “find some degree of training,” advises Dr. Lindenauer. “SHM has regularly offered workshops as a first step to starting research. Other societies offer short, intensive training—or a fellowship. If you get … charged up doing research, find a fellowship.”

Build in Review by an IRB

There’s one more crucial step involved in setting up and conducting a QI research project, assuming you want to get your results published: “You should notify [your institutional review board] and have them look at your project,” says Dr. Lindenauer. “The best time to do this is during the conceptualization, once you have your research protocol.”

You should take care of this on your own because your QI department isn’t likely to think it’s necessary. “There’s often a disconnect between the perceived need for the involvement of the IRB between researchers and QI folks,” explains Dr. Lindenauer. “Usually, QI departments don’t tend to seek IRB review for their projects. But if you’re contemplating publishing your research—which is typically the ultimate goal to a research project—this always requires IRB review. This is true even though the case is often that QI projects are exempt.”

One place to begin your education on QI research is on SHM’s Web site, under “Quality & Safety,” where you can browse quality improvement tools and several quality improvement resource rooms. TH